Notre Dame women's basketball: Mallory shoots early, often for Irish

March 26, 2011|By CURT RALLO | South Bend Tribune Staff Writer

Notre Dame's Brittany Mallory signals "3" after knocking down a 3-pointer in the second half against Oklahoma in the regional semifinal Saturday at University of Dayton Arena. Notre Dame defeated Oklahoma, 78-53. (Tribune Photo/MARCUS MARTER)

DAYTON, Ohio - Notre Dame’s Brittany Mallory took the basketball during Friday’s practice at the University of Dayton Arena and stepped behind the black 3-point line. The 5-foot-10 senior guard fired a shot to the hoop against the backdrop of blue seats.

Irish coach Muffet McGraw heard the swish of Mallory’s shot. The next thing McGraw heard was Mallory excitedly telling her that the Dayton arena was shooter friendly.

“She said to me after practice (Friday), ‘This is a shooter’s rim. This is a shooter’s gym,’” McGraw said of Mallory. “She really felt good about it."

Mallory didn't waste any time backing up her insights after the opening tip against Oklahoma.

"She made the first one, the second one, then the third one," McGraw said. "Then, we all wanted to look for her after that. She really got us out of the gate. Nobody else was scoring. She got our first nine points, and that relaxed everybody else.”

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Mallory entered Saturday’s Sweet Sixteen match-up against Oklahoma 0-for-10 in 3-point shooting her last three games, including the first two rounds of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament.

On Saturday, Mallory hit 6-of-10 shots from 3-point range, and scored 20 points in leading Notre Dame to a 78-53 walloping of Oklahoma that put the Irish in the Elite Eight for the first time since the national championship season of 2001. The senior sharpshooter tied a school record for most 3-pointers in an NCAA Tournament game. Former Rochester High star Sheila McMillen (1998 vs. Purdue) and Beth Morgan (1997 vs. Alabama) also hit six 3’s in an NCAA game for the Irish.

Mallory, who had only hit four of her last 21 shots from 3-point range (19 percent), let the Sooners know just a minute and five seconds into the game that the drought was over.

“(Irish associate head coach Jonathan Tsipis) tells me I have to have memory loss when it comes to shooting,” Mallory said. “The next shot, I can’t worry about what happened before. It stung a little in the back of my mind that I hadn’t hit a 3 in my last few games, but I just wanted to keep shooting. That’s what shooters do. Luckily, my teammates had faith in me that I’m just going to keep shooting, and they’ll fall.”

Mallory entered the game hitting 39 percent of her 3-pointers (36-of-93) this season. She only hit 31 percent last season (28-of-91), and in her freshman season, hit 28 percent (34-of-122).

Owning the boards

Notre Dame outrebounded Oklahoma, 47-24, leading to a 19-2 advantage in second-chance points. The Irish pulled down 14 offensive rebounds and limited Oklahoma to just two. Devereaux Peters, who scored 17 points for Notre Dame, tore down 13 rebounds for the Irish.

“Lately, a big thing for us has been rebounding,” Peters said. “The first game of the tournament, we weren’t really boxing out as much, and the second game we tried to pick it up a little bit. Our coaches really pounded it into our heads that you have to box out … I think we did that today. Even the guards were crashing in today, and that helped out a lot. We were getting a lot of boards and put-backs.”

Bruszewski injury

Irish post Becca Bruszewski dished off a perfect pass as Devereaux Peters cut to the hoop, giving Notre Dame a 17-13 lead, when Oklahoma’s Joanna McFarland crashed into her. Bruszewski limped off the court, but the senior returned to the game with 3:31 left in the first half.

McGraw said that Bruszewski was questionable for Monday’s Elite Eight game against Tennessee.

“She got up and tried to stay in the game and ran down the floor,” McGraw said. “I asked the referee to take a timeout to get her out of the game, because she was crying, and Becca’s the toughest kid we have. She doesn’t cry, so I knew it was fairly serious. The doctor took her to the locker room to find a brace for her to try to stabilize it. I think her knee was stable, but we’ll probably take a look at it again. I’d say she’s questionable for Monday’s game.

“She’s our leader,” McGraw said. “She’s the one who gets us ready for the game. She’s gives us that toughness. Just her trying to come back into the game helped us, because we all saw what she was going through to play. Obviously, we need her inside. She’s a good post defender, a good rebounder, and somebody who can score inside and out. We really need her.”

Growing a winner

Notre Dame didn’t break into the top 10 in the national rankings until the last week of January, but her Irish are in the final eight when it matters - March.

“At the beginning of the year, we lost four starters last year, and we came into this season kind of hoping that we’d play well, but really didn’t have any idea how good we could be,” McGraw said. “With Natalie Novosel’s improvement, with Devereaux Peters’ improvement, I think we’ve really matured and blossomed into a pretty good team.”